Medical Assistant resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 18 skills, tools and credentials that come up in medical assistant job posts, sorted by type, and how to put them in bullets a recruiter believes.
By Nazir Elmurodov, Founder, LaunchCV · Updated
/ The list
Keywords by type. Use only the ones that are true for you.
Hard skills · 13
- Vital signs (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- Patient intake (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- Venipuncture (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- Injections (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- EKG (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- Point-of-care testing (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- Medical assistant (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- Medical terminology (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- Insurance verification (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- Prior authorizations (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- Scheduling (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- HIPAA (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- Infection control (used in Brianna's sample resume)
Tools & software · 3
- EHR (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- athenahealth (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- eClinicalWorks
Licenses & certifications · 2
- CMA (AAMA) (used in Brianna's sample resume)
- BLS (used in Brianna's sample resume)
17 of 18 appear in Brianna's sample resume. See where
/ How to use them
Put keywords in bullets, not just in a skills list.
A skills list tells the software you have a skill. A bullet shows a recruiter what you did with it.
Vital signs, EHR, athenahealth
Weak: Skills: Vital signs, EHR, athenahealth
Strong: Room 25–30 patients a day for two family physicians, taking vital signs, histories and medication lists in the athenahealth EHR
Venipuncture, Injections
Weak: Skills: Venipuncture, Injections
Strong: Perform venipuncture, injections and EKGs, averaging 15 blood draws a day
Prior authorizations
Weak: Skills: Prior authorizations
Strong: Submit prior authorizations and referrals; cleared a 3-week referral backlog in my first month
HIPAA, Infection control
Weak: Skills: HIPAA, Infection control
Strong: Trained 3 new medical assistants on clinic workflows, infection control and HIPAA-compliant charting
Strong bullets come from Brianna's sample resume and our medical assistant bullet examples. Names and figures are illustrative.
/ Use them honestly
Keywords get you found. Proof gets you hired.
Mirror the job post's wording for skills you really have. If a medical assistant post asks for CMA (AAMA) and you've used it, say CMA (AAMA), in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a medical assistant post says "Vital signs", write "Vital signs", not a near-synonym — as long as it's accurate. Recruiters search for the post's exact term.
Only claim what you can back up
Expect to be asked about every term you list. If you couldn't spend two minutes on Patient intake — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Vital signs. A bullet like the one under Certified Medical Assistant in the example above shows what you did with it.
No stuffing, no hidden text
Repeating a word or hiding keywords in white text doesn't make you a better match. A person reads the resume in the end.
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/ Questions
Medical Assistant keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a medical assistant resume have?
There's no magic number. Brianna's sample resume uses 17 of the 18 terms on this page — the ones that fit that job. Cover what your post asks for that you can back up, each where it fits; repeating a keyword doesn't help.
Should I copy keywords exactly from the job post?
Use the post's wording for skills you really have. If a medical assistant post says "CMA (AAMA)", write "CMA (AAMA)" rather than a synonym, so a recruiter searching for that term finds you. Don't add skills you don't have just because the post lists them.
Where should keywords go on my resume?
In your summary, a short skills section and, above all, the bullets under each job, where you show what you did with the skill. In Brianna's sample, Medical assistant is in the summary and Vital signs shows up in a bullet under Certified Medical Assistant. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on a medical assistant resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in medical assistant posts include EHR, athenahealth and eClinicalWorks. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
How should I list CMA (AAMA) and BLS on my resume?
Spell them the way the job post does, and include both the abbreviation and the full name if you have room. Put licenses and certifications in their own section or next to your education, and only list ones that are current.
Keywords for related roles
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